I'm glad movies aren't going to please everybody, they can't. But what they have to be is recognisable. I don't equate myself with a master painter, but I think you can recognise my films.
I want to get into producing and writing more for myself - setting up my own films and seeing what kind of personal touch I can put on movies, as opposed to just being in them.
When I make movies, I don't ever go out there to please anyone other than myself. I never try to make a film for the masses. I just try to tell my story.
I took my acting very seriously. I did over 40 films, and naturally, some of them were called B-movies because the woman was at the top of the billing. Women couldn't star in their own movies.
Usually people like to categorise artists. With my films, I categorise people: if I know which one of my movies you like, I can tell which kind of a person you are.
I have a lot of things I want to do. I have a lot of fire. I want to do film. I want to do action movies. I want to do period pieces.
Movies are a director's medium, and they end up getting less credit than actors. They get the flak if the movie doesn't do well, and the actor walks away with most of the credit if the film does well.
The time it would take me to write a screenplay it would take me the time to make two films. I would rather make the movies, and I'm a better moviemaker than I would be writer.
I wasn't a fan of horror movies before 'Saw,' but through these films, I have definitely become a big fan and really come to respect and appreciate the genre and the fans that support it.
Because of how much movies cost, it's dangerous to be experimental on one film after the other. But we can experiment with television. We can do things that are fringe and bring ideas to the table that are offbeat and original.
It is not my job to compare my movies. I don't like to compare my films with other movies because I don't really have that perspective. It is an intellectual exercise, but it doesn't intuitively come to me.
George Valentin: [first lines, heard in one of his films] I won't talk! I won't say a word!
Jack Horner: You know this is the film I want them to remember me by.
I had pictured journalism as I'd seen it in the most ennobling films, where the reporter battles for the truth, propelled by conviction, and is triumphant. There are journalists who fit that ideal.
It's always challenging when you're shooting a film. Shooting things out of order and keeping continuity on all levels is always for me the most challenging thing.
I have to say I've been lucky in that way in that I've been able to go from different films and different genres with different challenges.
Independent films are where you really get to cut your teeth and have some fun and do the things that mainstream Hollywood doesn't want to do.
If people are looking forward to my films, then I am happy, and I must be doing something right.
The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.
You'll see Dame Judi Dench in a Bond film, in Shakespeare and then starring in her own sitcom. You never see that here with Meryl Streep.
I understand the bad rap that 3-D is getting because the conversions are crappy and because the films aren't designed for 3-D. It's a completely different medium.
